Grace
by sinemoras09
Summary: The story he remembers. Archer/Rin. UBW.


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1.

He can't put his finger on it, but Emiya Shirou _really_ begins to irritate him.

"We need to save them!" Shirou says, and while ordinarily Archer would pay no mind to such foolishness - the boy is young, those sentiments are those of someone too young to know better - Shirou's words grate at him.

"Why are you so mad?" Rin asks him, when they're alone and outside of the boy's earshot. "Emiya is harmless. He's just a kid."

"He is an idiot and a suicidal fool. I have no respect for his brand of idiocy," Archer says.

"Oh? Well I happen to like his brand of idiocy," Rin says.

Archer just frowns at her, rubbing his temple to stave off the coming migraine.

xXx

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He figures it out the night Shirou fights Caster: the projections, the numbness in his arm. The sinking knowledge that everything is futile.

The swords Shirou makes are just like his.

xXx

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"Archer," Shirou says. He's sitting in the shed again, dragging one numbed arm like an anchor. Saber steps in front, ready to fight and risk her life if need be. Archer shrugs, nonchalantly.

"I went through something similar before. I believe I can be of help."

He touches Shirou's back. He is struck by how frail Shirou is. Unblemished. The skin of Shirou's back is still smooth and pale; his hair has not yet lost its color.

In ten years, Emiya Shirou's skin will begin to scar; in twenty years his hair will begin to whiten. Archer looks at Emiya Shirou's face - _his_ face, his younger self - and frowns silently at the wisps of baby fat still clinging to Shirou's cheeks.

Was he really this young, once? Archer can't remember.

xXx

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That night, his memories come back in a flood.

He remembers: cold air and dark skies. A tattered cloak and a bow and arrow. A sea of bodies, littered on the ground.

He looks at himself in the mirror. His face is hard and his eyes are bruised, and an ugly scar cuts across his chest, a reminder of when Rin healed him all those years ago.

xXx

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"Archer. You're acting strange," Rin says.

She's standing in her nightgown, hands on her hips and chin jutted out, accusingly. Archer looks at her quietly. Rin has always been able to read him, both then when he was younger and after when he became a guardian. Now is no different. He smiles a little and shakes his head.

"My master is most distrustful," Archer says. "I am merely fatigued. Surely you will grant me that?"

"Hmph," Rin says, and she turns, not looking at him.

"I worry about you," Rin says. He can't see her face; she's talking to the curtains hanging on the wall. "You disappear at odd hours of the night, and lately I've been having nightmares. I think they may be memories of your past."

"What do you remember?" Archer says.

"Swords," Rin says. "An endless landscape full of swords."

She is looking at him now, and Archer watches silently as she tries to read him. He sees bright blue eyes and a stern little mouth, a face much younger than he remembers.

"Don't trouble yourself over it," Archer says. Rin shakes her head.

"Between you and Emiya I can't help but worry," Rin says. Archer looks at her, silently.

He has hunted his younger self through a mosiac of different pasts, engineered hundreds of different lifetimes in a futile attempt to erase himself. The one constant that seems to hold true in all of these iterations is that Tohsaka Rin cares about him. It hurts him and vexes him at the same time.

"Do not lump me in with that simple-minded idiot," Archer tells her. "I promise you that I am fine."

She looks at him as if she doesn't believe him. And for a moment, he isn't sure he believes himself.

xXx

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2.

Sometimes, Archer doesn't recognize himself. Broad shouldered and lean, Archer is the very antithesis of his former self, who was small and weak and pathetically clinging to his ideals.

"Your hair is turning white," Rin said. This Rin was not the young girl who summoned him - this Rin was a woman who's known him for decades, who's seen his fledgling powers take root and grow within him. This Rin had the same proud little chin and piercing blue eyes, even if the angles of her face were no longer soft, or the long wisps of hair no longer done up in girlish pigtails. She was kneeling beside him, touching a tender spot on his shoulder, and Archer remembers how he held his breath, feeling the warm healing touch of the pads of her fingers sinking into his skin. "Your body is so damaged. You really need to stop pushing yourself."

"It's okay so long as someone is saved," Archer remembers saying, and he remembers how Rin glared at him, punching him against the arm.

"Ow! Tohsaka-"

"You're a goddamn moron, Emiya Shirou," Rin said. "Next time you pull a stunt like that I'll be sure to beat you, first."

xXx

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He keeps the pendant like a talisman. Sometimes, after a hard mission, he will roll it in his fingers like a worry stone, fingers tracing over each smooth surface.

"You know it doesn't work anymore," Rin told him.

He wanted to tell her of course he knows it doesn't work, any idiot can see that; he just liked the way it felt in his hand, its weight was comforting to him. He didn't stop to think about its implications and neither did Rin, who grimaced at him and rolled her eyes.

xXx

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3.

"Emiya."

It's the first thing Rin says when he materializes in her room. He knows what she sees: narrowed eyes and long cloak falling over broad shoulders, his body a dark silhouette against the moonlit curtains. Rin sits up and hugs her arms and Archer doesn't say anything. He has spent the better part of a millenia without her.

"Are you here to kill me?" Rin says. Archer slowly shakes his head.

"No."

"Then why are you here?" Rin says, and Archer steps closer to show her.

He kisses her softly on the mouth, one hand sliding under the birdlike cage of her jaw while the other tenderly cups the side of her face. Her chin is small and delicate, he feels as if he isn't careful, he could break it in his hand.

"I saw you die today," Rin says, and Archer remembers. _Yes_ , he thinks. _My execution_. Her eyes are puffy and red and he can't help but think that there's nothing in his life but a mountain of regrets.

The light from a passing car arcs across the room and partially illuminates her face; it looks as if she had been silently weeping. He feels her fingers curl into tiny fists at her side.

Did he know that they were lovers, once? He's summoned and he fingers the amulet in his pocket. He has a vague awareness that she should know him, and as she's looking at him, he thinks he remembers-

An open palm, sliding along the sweat of her skin; the rare shock of rain as they offered parts of their bodies to each other. She is younger now, small pointed chin jutting up at him, pissed off and defiant, and as he fingers the amulet she introduces herself to him:

Her name is Rin, she says.

Ah yes, he thinks. That's the name he remembers.


End file.
